Concrete Island

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20130623

2013062920140622 (BBC7)20140623 (BBC7)

By J G Ballard. A cocky young architect is stranded when he crashes off the motorway.

By J.G. Ballard

Adapted by Graham White

Driving home one Friday rush hour, a cocky young architect crashes down a motorway embankment. At first he seems bound to be rescued, but as he fails to make the passing commuters notice him, he finds himself trapped on a strange, neglected island between the highways. Can this modern day Crusoe survive in a strange new world?

The adjective Ballardian refers to the writer 'JG Ballard's fearful imaginings of what the near future might be like. Even though the master creator of dystopian futures died four years ago, his vision of what our future might become feels as relevant, satirical and as scary as ever. Radio 4's Dangerous Visions is a season of dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias. Dramatisations of Ballard's seminal works, Drowned World and Concrete Island, straddle the season, and we have asked five leading radio writers - Nick Perry, Ed Harris, Michael Symmonds Roberts, Michael Butt and Philip Palmer - to imagine what life might be like in the near future if everything goes wrong - and their Dangerous Visions form the bedrock of the series: clever, imaginative and disturbing takes on just what might happen. What happens if sleep is outlawed? If cloning becomes a matter of course, and your loved ones are capable of being cloned? If North London declares UDI on South London, which has become a wasteland? If human sacrifice becomes a part of society? We are also running a 5 part dramatisation of Jane Roger's award winning terrifying novel The Testament of Jessie Lamb, dramatised by the author

Dangerous Visions - you will be disturbed as you see the present reflected in the glass

of an uneasy future.

Episodes

FirstBroadcast

Repeated

Comments

20130623

2013062920140622 (BBC7)20140623 (BBC7)

By J G Ballard. A cocky young architect is stranded when he crashes off the motorway.

By J.G. Ballard

Adapted by Graham White

Driving home one Friday rush hour, a cocky young architect crashes down a motorway embankment. At first he seems bound to be rescued, but as he fails to make the passing commuters notice him, he finds himself trapped on a strange, neglected island between the highways. Can this modern day Crusoe survive in a strange new world?

The adjective Ballardian refers to the writer 'JG Ballard's fearful imaginings of what the near future might be like. Even though the master creator of dystopian futures died four years ago, his vision of what our future might become feels as relevant, satirical and as scary as ever. Radio 4's Dangerous Visions is a season of dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias. Dramatisations of Ballard's seminal works, Drowned World and Concrete Island, straddle the season, and we have asked five leading radio writers - Nick Perry, Ed Harris, Michael Symmonds Roberts, Michael Butt and Philip Palmer - to imagine what life might be like in the near future if everything goes wrong - and their Dangerous Visions form the bedrock of the series: clever, imaginative and disturbing takes on just what might happen. What happens if sleep is outlawed? If cloning becomes a matter of course, and your loved ones are capable of being cloned? If North London declares UDI on South London, which has become a wasteland? If human sacrifice becomes a part of society? We are also running a 5 part dramatisation of Jane Roger's award winning terrifying novel The Testament of Jessie Lamb, dramatised by the author

Dangerous Visions - you will be disturbed as you see the present reflected in the glass